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I kind of doubt that they will be able to cancel Gundam Age like they can cancel Gundam X.

Gundam is a important franchise because it is a cash cow thanks to the models and games, so it isn't easily cancelled like with American shows.

At best the next Gundam show will have a more traditional concept and the short arcs will not be done in the future because it hurts the show to much. Gundam is about two things messed up politics and mobile suit battles, having a story reset every 15+ episodes results in less awsome battles since they have to build up the story again (introduce rival and characters) in a good pace.

Which people will of course summarily shit all over for being too similar to past Gundam series. At this rate Gundam fandom has kind of turned on the Gundam concept itself and is pretty routinely hostile towards it because of the impossible expectation to meet of fans wanting something they've never seen before, but that has enough elements that they can call it a "real Gundam show".

If I were Bandai I might consider taking a bit more of break from Gundam TV series after AGE, say 5 years instead of three and see where the fandom is at by putting out some feelers, but otherwise remain completely silent and let the usual target age segment of the fandom fill up with some potential new blood that aren't hardliners. Also next time they need to make absolutely certain that they keep a firm handle on the promotional phase of the show and that nothing leaks ahead of the official unveiling so that people start attributing negative associations with it before there's even a chance to share the real scoop. There's no doubt that that one scan just flat out gimped AGE's potential right from the get go in a way that was almost impossible to recover from.

This one. It came out about 3 days ahead of the official announcement if I recall and over a weekend giving people plenty of time to pass judgment on the show before any context about it was established. Many people clearly made up their minds about Gundam Age not with the first several episodes, but with this picture. Perhaps never before has a single picture done so much damage to peoples impression of a show...possible exception being that incredibly misquoted and taken out of context interview with Goro Taniguchi where he explained about how the time slot change led him to make a couple of changes as to how Code Geass R2 started off which thousands of angry fanboys decided meant that they had somehow been given a fake version of the show.

If there's one thing that Sunrise and Bandai need to learn and learn fast (and I think they are finally starting to get it albeit a lot later than some other production companies) its that fanboys in this internet age(especially ones of their shows it seems) are incredibly angry, stubborn and often just flat out stupid people that will jump to incredible lengths and conclusions based on the flimsiest of evidence and reasoning, and thus they need to be incredibly INCREDIBLY careful with how they go about doing promotional phases, interviews and explaining information about shows productions to people. No more saying or releasing anything that can possibly be taken out of context and maybe find a way to not have Newtype articles or any information for that matter leaked ahead of them getting to have first say in announcing a product so that people get the right information when they need to get it.

Honestly Kaioshin_Sama, you can't really say that alot of people refused to even watch AGE because of one picture, there was negative reactions to the initial picture on both this site, mechatalk and 4chan, but it was mostly trolling and misunderstandings regarding the mistranslation, as soon as the truth came out that fire burned out really quick.

Age was given a chance by alot of fans/people (See tv-ratings) but it failed to catch peoples attention with the first episodes.

While lots of hardcore fans might watch the show out of habit because it has the name " Gundam " tacket onto it, regular viewers is not going to watch a show and hope that it gets better when there are other shows to watch in the timeslot, especially kids.

AGE was intended for a younger audience, which put off alot of the adult viewers, which is perfectly understandable aswell, the first generation was really wonky until episode 12+ and even then it maintained the kiddy aspect to it until Gen 2, where in my opinion it's really kicked off and improved alot, it feels like a different show than Gen 1

whoever rated me down instead of replying: complains on character designs still have contributed, even now.

of course, first impressions when it comes to shows are important but if the character designs was different, it wouldnt be the same show anymore, AGE is what AGE is, it is intended for pre-teens, not teens and above, the design was meant to attract kids, not adult viewers.

The fact he's overlooking is that the first half of Flit's story was awful. It didn't improve until significantly later. I would personally say the last 3-4 episodes. It's not because fanboys refused to give it a shot because of the promo art. Age simply did not catch people's interest. Those of us who stuck with it are finding it very enjoyable, but we are not indicative of the Japanese audience which is what ratings are based on.

IMO the concept behind AGE is pretty cool, and I can see it working, but not within a 50 episode series. Had bandai devoted 25 episodes to each protagonist I think the series would have been a lot better because of more time to develop characters and what not.

__________________

I cannot give you back your homes, or restore your dead to life, but perhaps I can give you justice, in the name of our King. ~ Ned Stark

The fact he's overlooking is that the first half of Flit's story was awful. It didn't improve until significantly later. I would personally say the last 3-4 episodes. It's not because fanboys refused to give it a shot because of the promo art. Age simply did not catch people's interest. Those of us who stuck with it are finding it very enjoyable, but we are not indicative of the Japanese audience which is what ratings are based on.

IMO the concept behind AGE is pretty cool, and I can see it working, but not within a 50 episode series. Had bandai devoted 25 episodes to each protagonist I think the series would have been a lot better because of more time to develop characters and what not.

i dont think the number of episodes per gen was the problem, it was the pacing and how they told the story about Flit, Fardain was a waste of time in my opinion (and Titus aswell for that matter), we see nothing about Euba/Zalam in Gen 2, what happened to the funky leader?

If they spent more time in Gen 1 developing the characters they had even a little more, like Emily, Vargas, Largan, Millias, Token black guy and Flit himself and skipped Giantarms-shovel guy and his red headed kid, people might've been more interested in watching the show.

but to round it up, its how you make use of the time your given, not how much time you have.

i dont think the number of episodes per gen was the problem, it was the pacing and how they told the story about Flit, Fardain was a waste of time in my opinion (and Titus aswell for that matter), we see nothing about Euba/Zalam in Gen 2, what happened to the funky leader?

If they spent more time in Gen 1 developing the characters they had even a little more, like Emily, Vargas, Largan, Millias, Token black guy and Flit himself and skipped Giantarms-shovel guy and his red headed kid, people might've been more interested in watching the show.

but to round it up, its how you make use of the time your given, not how much time you have.

Fardain wasn't useless nor a waste of time. It was supposed to show off Flit's leadership abilities and how he was able to get people to stop fighting and unite against the Vegan, and so it foreshadows his leadership roles later in life. Also it tried to show how useless the Earth Federation was back then.

i dont think the number of episodes per gen was the problem, it was the pacing and how they told the story about Flit, Fardain was a waste of time in my opinion (and Titus aswell for that matter), we see nothing about Euba/Zalam in Gen 2, what happened to the funky leader?

If they spent more time in Gen 1 developing the characters they had even a little more, like Emily, Vargas, Largan, Millias, Token black guy and Flit himself and skipped Giantarms-shovel guy and his red headed kid, people might've been more interested in watching the show.

but to round it up, its how you make use of the time your given, not how much time you have.

Yeahhhh I whole heartedly agree about Fardain and Titus being a waste of time.

The fact he's overlooking is that the first half of Flit's story was awful. It didn't improve until significantly later. I would personally say the last 3-4 episodes. It's not because fanboys refused to give it a shot because of the promo art. Age simply did not catch people's interest. Those of us who stuck with it are finding it very enjoyable, but we are not indicative of the Japanese audience which is what ratings are based on.

IMO the concept behind AGE is pretty cool, and I can see it working, but not within a 50 episode series. Had bandai devoted 25 episodes to each protagonist I think the series would have been a lot better because of more time to develop characters and what not.

The fact that your overlooking is that that's your opinion. Don't try to assert your opinion as fact to me and then expect me not to notice it when you put it at the very beginning of your post. As for the rest of what you say that's all well and good, but I don't think it should be downplayed what went on with that early picture leak and all the rumours and misconceptions that circulated the internet prior to the official unveiling of the project. The fact that the shows writer had to come out and say that the Gundam didn't talk and what the Age device was kind of shows how far out of control things had spun because of that leak.

As for the first arc, all I remember hearing people criticize the show on for the most part was it's art style and the Fardain arc in descending order of frequency. In fact all I heard complaint wise before the Fardain arc was just how "kiddie looking" the show was and how it meant that it wasn't Gundam and therefore the show sucked and only after Fardain did I actually see people start to criticize the show based on it's actual material, but that sort of died down just as quickly as the Fardain arc ended. As a result I'm ultimately still forced to come to the conclusion that the key reason for Gundam Age failing to capture and/or losing audience was the art style before any other factor

Kaioshin, Bandai's problem is AGE losing its kid target audience. The inazuma eleven crowd. This is even younger than Seed and 00's age group. (And it's people like us who are out of their target audience that are still watching the show.)

Thes inazuma eleven crowd (except for the fujoshi) are people who are still casual and have yet become an otaku or more serious anime fan.

I doubt they even read anime magazine like Newtype. They get their information from other magazines like this. http://corocoro.tv/

People like us are NOT a determining factor. Animesuki is not a determining factor. Long time Gundam fans are not a determining factor. AGE was meant to target a new audience.

But I agree that kids of that target age group tends to be very judgmental at times. The moment they decide something is not cool, they will abandon it.

Fardain wasn't useless nor a waste of time. It was supposed to show off Flit's leadership abilities and how he was able to get people to stop fighting and unite against the Vegan, and so it foreshadows his leadership roles later in life. Also it tried to show how useless the Earth Federation was back then.

I guess they could have done it differently though.

I guess you could say that it was for him to show his upcoming leadership skills, but it could've been portrayed in a better way.

@Sonic

Titus was big for the AGE-System, but they could've used it better aswell, it just felt like it got tossed in, ignored, used once again for 30 seconds and then it was forgotten, i mean the Adele's dont even put it to good use, what was the point of it to begin with?

The fact that your overlooking is that that's your opinion. Don't try to assert your opinion as fact to me and then expect me not to notice it when you put it at the very beginning of your post. As for the rest of what you say that's all well and good, but I don't think it should be downplayed what went on with that early picture leak and all the rumours and misconceptions that circulated the internet prior to the official unveiling of the project. The fact that the shows writer had to come out and say that the Gundam didn't talk and what the Age device was kind of shows how far out of control things had spun because of that leak.

As for the first arc, all I remember hearing people criticize the show on for the most part was it's art style and the Fardain arc in descending order of frequency. In fact all I heard complaint wise before the Fardain arc was just how "kiddie looking" the show was and how it meant that it wasn't Gundam and therefore the show sucked and only after Fardain did I actually see people start to criticize the show based on it's actual material, but that sort of died down just as quickly as the Fardain arc ended. As a result I'm ultimately still forced to come to the conclusion that the key reason for Gundam Age failing to capture and/or losing audience was the art style before any other factor

So basically what you are saying is that it's the fans' fault that AGE is flopping so bad?

Please, you are grasping at straws here. Bandai wanted to appeal to a certain audience, and they failed to do that. Their research and audience studies were clearly faulty.

If you want to go the silly route and blame some leaks for its poor ratings, fine. Again, whose fault is that? The audience's or the company that had the leak? Maybe they need to tighten things in-house. Or maybe someone wanted the project to flop because they didn't like where it was going.

Anways, since you like facts, here's a fact: the customer is always right, and the customer is not happy with AGE.

__________________

I cannot give you back your homes, or restore your dead to life, but perhaps I can give you justice, in the name of our King. ~ Ned Stark

It wasnt the marketing, leaked picture or gunpla that made AGE flop, it was the show itself, i dont dislike the show, i like AGE, but the general public and the public it was aimed towards do notlike it. That is something we have to accept. There is a few people here that like AGE, we don't have to sit here and find/make up excuses to why ratings are dropping or why gunpla isnt selling as much as it should, we enjoy the show and that should be enough.

Personally i am really looking forward to Gen-3, with Gen-2 being such a improvement over Gen-1.

My take is that AGE overdid its attempt to appeal to its target group: kids. Rather than trying to arouse interest in those kids with something "cool", they tailored something too close to their age. What I think is "cool" to those kids is like SEED; kids with super powers and being able to achieve more than what is expected of their age. And there after they would begin to idolise those in-show kids and try to emulate them as much as they can. And since superpower kids like Kira become their role models, they follow them and indeed the show itself. AGE didn't succeed because it made Flit looked too bland at first, too weak and too normal - like a kid and something kids want desperately not to become.

I agree that kids are more judgmental and heed first impressions. Add to that with the "spread effect", kids discouraging their peers from watching AGE and a whole population of kids start to shun AGE.

AGE didn't succeed because it made Flit looked too bland at first, too weak and too normal - like a kid and something kids want desperately not to become.

Yeah... a bland kid that build a Gundam, and pilots it like a boss and is a X-Rounder.. Yeah.. totally not super..
And btw, I'm not sure why you have to drag Seed into this as 00 is a better example for having kids with super powers, they even put a lot of emphasis on it.

Quote:

It wasnt the marketing, leaked picture or gunpla that made AGE flop, it was the show itself, i dont dislike the show, i like AGE, but the general public and the public it was aimed towards do notlike it. That is something we have to accept. There is a few people here that like AGE, we don't have to sit here and find/make up excuses to why ratings are dropping or why gunpla isnt selling as much as it should, we enjoy the show and that should be enough.

Exactly!!
You don't have to look for excuses for something you like that appears to be a failure, just be cool about it.

Anyways, why is Age failing? simple, it has no sawgg. just my 2 € cents.